The Man Who Plays Moses: An Interview with Leo Aguilera
Leo Aguilera has lived a remarkable year. He spent the 2023-24 school year studying in France at Campus Adventiste du Salève and traveling through Europe with his brother and friends. In April, he became engaged to his high school sweetheart; the two worked alongside each other as directors at a summer camp. Now, Aguilera is performing as Moses on the largest stage in Adventism in front of about 60,000 people at the “Believe the Promise” International Pathfinder Camporee.
In early July, after his sixth and final summer working at Northern Michigan’s Camp Au Sable (his third as director of the camp’s boys’ village) Aguilera traveled 250 miles south to his hometown of Berrien Springs, for intensive rehearsals for the upcoming Camporee play. After a few weeks, the core cast of 23, along with the troupe’s two directors, traveled to Gillette, Wyoming, where they refined the play’s five acts in a nearby theater.
I spoke with Aguilera on the afternoon of August 1 during some of the rare free time punctuating the cast’s long days. We talked about Aguilera’s motivation to “inspire the kids” in his key onstage role and the blessing of being part of a cast that “has just been amazing to work with.” Our conversation has been edited for clarity.
How would you describe your past few weeks working on the play?
It’s been an awesome experience. It’s been such a blessing working with this awesome cast. If there’s one thing I could say about this cast it is that they really are a great group of people who all have the same mission and the same mindset, and that’s just been amazing.
Obviously a concern is always going to be whether or not people are going to have the same mentality as you and if they’re going to have the same goals. This group of people is just amazing and they’ve made this experience so much better.
You have acted in a number of productions before. What are the types of things you have worked on?
Yeah. My acting experience—my resume—is not necessarily the most developed. I did a lot of little plays for church up until about middle school. My high school class would do a program called Night of a Thousand Laughs. We would put on all these funny little comedy sketches, and that was always a fun time, but that was only once a year.
I have also been a part of two films, one of them called The Mysterious Note and the other The Secret of the Fossil, which was just released this past January.
And some acting at camp too, right?
Right. At camp I liked to get very involved in acting. I got to play the lead role my fourth summer. And I played a comedic relief role once. I played a couple of other characters along the way, but that is the extent of my acting career.
Has the process of gearing up for the Camporee play been different from the previous productions you have been a part of? If so, how?
Yeah. This production has definitely been a step up from anything I have ever been a part of. There are so many moving parts. There are so many moving elements. You have to nail your lines, you have to nail your acting […] Because this is a full-blown production—you are going to be performing in front of 60,000, if not more people, in person, as well as hundreds of thousands online, not just in the moment, but for years to come.
It has taken a lot of practice. I have been memorizing my lines since about February, when I first got my full script. I worked super hard on it. Luckily, I got [to Berrien Springs] and had my lines at probably a solid 90 percent. So it made the transition into acting with other people much easier because I already had my lines down. And then it just came more to the acting and the blocking and all that kind of stuff.
How has that process been? You guys have been working together since early July, right?
Yeah. It has been about three weeks. Our practices started at Andrews University in Berrien Springs. And we did about two and a half weeks there. We did a lot of blocking, as well as getting acquainted with our costuming and with what the stage is going to look like. Obviously we are not on the stage, so we would take down and try to measure out what each room and each sector of the stage would look like, and practice coming in and out of exits and all that kind of stuff.
Now that we are here in Gillette, we are doing the same. We have a much bigger theater now to practice in, which has been awesome, but we have still not gotten on the stage and today is Thursday.
Really!
[…] we are getting on the stage tonight for the first time to practice in action. So that will be exciting.
Does it feel like you have had enough time to prepare? Three, four weeks before a production as big as this one does not seem like all that much time, even if you are rehearsing all day, every day. Do you feel ready?
Yeah. There are obviously going to be elements of this production that feel a little bit uncertain. There are areas that maybe we have not practiced as much or scenes we have not looked at as much.
Overall, I do feel very prepared. Our directors have put a lot of time and effort into making sure we are comfortable, we are feeling good about our lines. Checking in on us.
Throughout the spring, I had several check-ins with the directors where they came to see how my lines were going and to even see how some of my acting was going. So, even before getting here, I felt pretty good about my lines. Then, it was putting all the different moving parts together to make it the production that it is turning out to be.
It sounds like you are describing an environment where you feel supported not just by the directors, but also by your fellow cast members.
It has definitely been an amazing experience. I love and appreciate this team so much. Like I said, we all have the same mentality. We all have the same goal. And although we are all different and we come from different places and backgrounds, it is awesome to have so many people that have the same mentality: we want to minister to these kids. We want to inspire these kids.
I have appreciated the maturity from this cast. That is one thing, obviously, you worry about when you have a bunch of young people together, that there is going to be drama or whatever. And that is one of the things that has just been incredible. This group is such a positive group, a group that likes to see the light. Even when we have disagreements, we do not linger on it.
We understand, we respect each other. We respect the directors. It has made everything just so much more refreshing because there is no tension. There is no frustration. There is no—nothing. It is such a great culture that the directors have been able to create with and through us. And it has just been an incredible experience.
The kind of environment you are describing reminds me a little bit of camp. You just finished your sixth and final summer at Camp Au Sable in Northern Michigan. You have been director of the boys’ village for three years (I had the privilege of working with you for a couple of those years). One thing I noticed at camp was that most everyone was very mission oriented, committed to the reason that the camp exists. Would you say that there are any parallels? What was it like to come from that environment and into this one?
One of the things I love about Camp Au Sable is that it is a very structured camp. Talking to other friends and people who have gone to other camps—some other camps are not as structured and they definitely have to hire a lot more younger people. One of the nice things about working at Au Sable is that we have a really nice group of people that come pretty consistently.
In some degrees, preparing for this play has been like camp in that refreshing manner. But this is a whole step up from camp. And that is not to say camp is not great. And it is not to say that the people at camp are not great. But when you just have such an amazing group of 25 people, like we do here, and everybody is at just this incredible caliber of mentality, work ethic, energy, motivation, positivity—it has been even more relieving than camp has.
Again, that is not to trash camp, but this group has been—and I am not trying to brag or anything—such an elite group of people who have been able to come together under this mission. It has been one of, if not the greatest experiences of my life.
So, in regards to commitment to the mission of the play, it is like camp, but a lot more concentrated, a lot more intense? Because you are bonding with a much smaller group of people who have been selected from a much larger pool.
I would agree with that. It is a great group of people, again, and that is not to say that other people who auditioned were not, but it is just an awesome group of people.
I want to transition into your interpretation of Moses and your creative process. First, can you just tell me a little bit about how you learned that you had gotten the part?
It is a funny story. I did my audition at Camp Au Sable in the summer of 2023 and then I had a callback audition in September. I did not hear anything from them and I definitely did not want to push. So I waited patiently. I was obviously praying about it. Asking God to guide and lead them and try to lead me as well.
On my birthday, I actually got a Zoom call set up with Heidi and Jeff—our co-directors. When they called me, I was excited because I thought, Maybe I got into the cast. Great. There was no part of me that would have imagined, dreamed, even thought, They were going to ask me to be Moses.
It was definitely a very humbling conversation that we had, talking about what their expectations were of Moses and what they saw in me and what they hope to see in me.
Throughout this whole experience, it is definitely easy for things like this to get to your head, to think I got here on my own merit or because I am a great actor. Being here in Gillette, surrounded by hundreds of people who are looking at me as Moses, it is very easy for these kinds of things to get in your head and to think, I am this great actor.
That is one thing I have had to pray about every single morning, something I ask God every single morning. God, hide me behind you so these people do not see me, but they see you through me.
It has been an absolute blessing and an absolutely amazing experience. The part of Moses is so fun. You get to see so much range in him[…] Because you see the emotions of him making mistakes, you see the emotions of him doubting God, you see the emotion and the strength that God gives him once he accepts and follows God’s plan and believes in the promise. It has been, ultimately, an amazing experience.
I am very blessed that God has selected and put me here in this position. I am trying my best to carry myself in a godly manner in all that I do, because I know the impact that casts have made on me in the past 10 years. Looking back to Daniel, which was my first Camporee, going and just being absolutely inspired to take acting more seriously and to strive to be excellent. Equally so in the last Camporee, seeing David.
In the last Camporee, I got to be an extra. So I got to interact a little bit more with the cast, and just being in this environment and seeing the impact you can make on these kids has been a blessing. And I cannot wait until these campers get here so I can, by God’s grace, be the same inspiration that all those people were to me all those years ago.
Would you ever have imagined, after Daniel and David, that it was going to be you on the stage with the titular role?
There is always that side of you that dreams, Hey, maybe one day, that will be me, but there was definitely no part of me that believed it could be me. It has been a crazy experience, for sure.
10 years ago, at the Daniel Camporeee, was the moment in my life I heard God speak to me most clearly. It was the last night of the Camporee, the fireworks were going off to celebrate the end. The last night of the play had gone out with success and God had held up the weather. That last night, there was threatening weather coming in. And if you hear the stories of that night about how the storm basically split around Oshkosh, it was an incredible miracle that was performed in order for everybody to see that last night of the play.
That night I felt God calling me. I, more clearly than ever, felt God saying, I have got big things in store for you.
And no, I would never have imagined it would be something to this level. And this has been a blessing, but the one thing I have also been reminding myself is that, as big as this is and as exciting as this is, I know God has even bigger things planned and in store for me. And I think it is important that everybody knows that, if you allow God to use you, he will do incredible things through you, not necessarily for you, but through you.
It is a mentality that, as I have been talking with this cast, we have been agreeing to. It is not easy sometimes, to go into things with a positive or an uplifting or a Godly mentality, because we are all sinful and we all have sinful tendencies and sinful mentalities. But when we choose to follow God, when we choose to put him first, you can see the amazing things that he does through you.
And again, it has been an absolute blessing and an honor to be able to portray this amazing character and leader. One of the greatest leaders of humanity and of earth.
Yeah. You see this as the culmination of a calling that you first became aware of 10 years ago?
It definitely feels full circle. I even remember in the 2019 Camporee when I was an extra. I ran around, no lines, just filling space. But I remember, on the last night, standing right in front of the stage because all the cast was up front, looking at the screen, waiting for Moses.
And I remember this one guy who I am friends with, his name is David Fernandez. They announced it as Moses on the screen and everybody erupted. He picked me up and went, I knew it, I knew it. Moments like that definitely make it feel like, wow, this all came full circle.
But yeah, there has been a culmination of things that have brought me to this moment, but I still choose to believe and to hang on to the fact that God put me here for a purpose that I may never understand. And I will never fully see the impact that God will have through me. I am okay with that because, kind of like camp, God puts us here to inspire others, to help others, to guide others.
At the end of the day, there is only so much we do here. I think our main mission in this moment and in this event is to inspire people not only to be better people and to be better Christians, but to dream big and to allow God to use you for big and powerful things.
You mentioned the emotional depth of the writing, the way the character is portrayed. How did you go about embodying those emotions, embodying this character of Moses, who’s obviously super complicated. There’s always so much going on in this story. I haven’t read the script, obviously, but the source material, the Bible, is pretty dramatic. How did you go about identifying with and personifying the character? What was your process like?
That’s a good question. Definitely one of the things that I enjoyed doing in a pre-process, after I had gotten the part, was going through the story of Moses and reading into it. When you read through Exodus, it’s actually interesting because there’s small, minute details that aren’t necessarily always in plays and movies and TV shows.
Like what?
I’m mostly referring to details later in Exodus, different rituals that they had to do and further description of events that happened with the calf and all that stuff. Reading the story in a little bit more depth than the good old traditional Bible story that we hear. I also enjoyed doing a lot of research on Egyptian history, the Egyptian side of things and reading up on some of the historical figures who may have been alive during Moses’ time in Egypt as a prince. Like the woman that is possibly said to have been his mother in Egypt, Hatshepsut. Then I read into a couple of the pharaohs who were also possibly alive during that time, Thutmose, Thutmose III.
Also just reading the script, obviously, going through it and trying to understand each situation, reading the scene and saying, okay, this is what’s going on and this is the emotion and this is what happened and so forth. Trying to piece together and work on facial acting as well as regular acting with your body, with your hands, with your stance, everything. It took time, it took a lot of reading, it took a lot of developing and researching and phone calls and Zoom calls with the directors. But, once again, the directorship has just been incredible and they’ve been supportive and helpful in every phase of this production. And they made it 10 times easier with their presence and support and advice throughout the whole process.
You mentioned reading an abundance of material, being thorough about grounding your interpretation in context. But how would you say you applied all the material that you went over, and how did you make a connection between what was on paper, what happened, and who you are? Was there anything that bridged the gap?
There are some ways that I feel I’ve connected with Moses growing up. I’ve definitely always been the leader in terms of my friends, my family, my cousins, my sibling. I’ve always been the leader. Looking at Moses, who was always kind of put on a pedestal, in a leadership position, taking note that he made mistakes. Yet God was still able to use him throughout all these mistakes.
One of the biggest things—Moses kills a man and eventually becomes the leader of his people who guides them into freedom. And I think that’s one of those little things where it’s like, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes, public or not. And if God could still use Moses, He can still use me. I tried to connect the mistakes Moses made to the mistakes I have made and try to bridge that in. Or when, when Moses has spiritual highs, I try to connect at the moments where I have had a spiritual high.
A lot of it has been reading and understanding the character, understanding the scenes, working with it, working on it with other characters and other actors to piece together what our goal and our objective is, as well as with the directors.
Are you excited to showcase all that work on the main Gillette stage? Does it feel real that there will be around 55,000 people watching this?
I have been blessed to have had the opportunity to be an extra in the last Camporee. And so, although I definitely do not know what it is like to be a core cast member, I do understand the anxiety or the pressure that builds the moment before you get on that stage. So in that sense, I am not, I guess, totally ready, but I am ready to see God do great things through us.
And in that sense, I feel comfort and strength and confidence in what I am putting in my work. I have studied my lines, I have done my acting, I have gone through my choreography. And at this point, I just gotta let God do his side of the work.
Is there something about the production that you are most excited about, a line or a scene or something that you are really looking forward to doing in front of an audience?
I do not want to give away too much, but, um, there are a lot of moving parts. There are a lot of exciting scenes that are definitely gonna catch the audience off guard. I am excited to perform those.
It is hard just to pick one because this play is packed with all sorts of amazing elements and amazing effects and all sorts of choreography that is just incredible. They have put so much work into this play and it is going to be something you are not going to want to miss.
That is about the end of our time. Is there anything you would like to add?
Yeah, actually. There is one thing that has been on my heart, which is: do not ever limit God on what He can do through you. I have had so many friends and people who have told me, and it hurts me to hear them say, that they do not believe that God can use them for big things, whether it is because they made mistakes or because they do not have certain skills or certain abilities.
Hang onto the fact that if you allow God to take control of your life and to lead you he can do amazingly big things. And sometimes those things will be big things that you will not realize are big things until we get to heaven. But let God lead you, let God take control of your mind and your heart and trust me, you will never live to regret it.
